Margaret Mead Series: First Days in the Life of A New Guinea Baby

Year Published: 1952

Creator: Gregory Bateson Margaret Mead

Complete Record: A New Guinea baby, from several minutes after birth to the fifth day of life, is nursed, bathed, and cared for by its parents. A series of scenes beginning immediately after birth and before the cord is cut, showing the way in which the newborn child is fed by a wet nurse, bathed, anointed with earth, and carried, with special emphasis on the infant's readiness to respond. “This picture shows the treatment of a new born baby among the latmul, a headhunting tribe of New Guinea. Most latmul babies are born at night or far from the village when the mother has been exerting herself gardening or fishing. This is the only birth [seen] in the daytime. The husband had told his wife to run and borrow some tobacco. She had started to run and the baby was born in a little wood right behind the village. The old woman to whom she had shouted for help, came by our house to get water to bathe the mother and told us about it. We followed her to the scene and arrived three or four minutes after birth.”